Car and Driver, Road & Track, MotorTrend, Motor1, and US News publish manual-transmission roundups annually, but they go stale. We update this registry when manufacturers confirm new model years or change available trims. If you see an error, email us.

The model count keeps shrinking. On the cars that still offer one, take rates run from about 1% to 90%, though that 1% (the Tacoma) is an outlier: excluding it, the range runs 22% to 90%. Motor1 surveys every automaker annually; these are the 2025-sales figures, the share of each model's buyers who chose the manual where it was offered.

Read those rates as a fact about these cars, not about the market. Across all new vehicles built for the US, the manual is close to gone: EPA's production data puts it at 34.6% of model-year 1980 output, and the agency's 2025 Trends Report states that manuals "have been below 1% of all production since model year 2021." The preliminary 2025 share is 0.6%, an all-time low. Both things are true at once. Nine in ten BRZ buyers pick the stick, and the stick is roughly six in every thousand new vehicles, because it now survives almost exclusively where a manufacturer offers it to people who came looking for it. A high take rate measures how committed the remaining buyers are, not where the market is heading.

Two brands went on record in August 2026, and both framed the manual as a demand decision rather than nostalgia.

Porsche. Timo Resch, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, told The Drive: "You can be assured that we will try to offer manual transmissions as long as we are legally allowed to and as long as there's customer demand. And we see customer demand for the optional manual transmission also lasting well into the next decade." Resch separately told Motor1 that strong demand for the manual 911 GT3 is what paved the way for the three-pedal Carrera S. He also said the T-Hybrid system in the current 911 GTS and Turbo S is not compatible with a manual today, while leaving the door open: "I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they [the engineers in Weissach] come up with a solution."

BMW. M boss Frank van Meel gave the reason the M3 CS Handschalter is a North American car, in an interview with BMW Blog reported by Carscoops: "Rear-wheel drive and a manual transmission are the dream combination for many purists. That is why we also made a limited model with a manual transmission for the U.S. [the M3 CS Handschalter]. Demand was enormous; the car was practically sold out immediately." In the same interview he put the current US M2 manual share at 50%.

Neither statement is a guarantee. Both are conditional on regulation and demand, and Porsche says so explicitly. But they are the clearest public commitments either company has made, and they are the reason two of the entries in the table above exist at all.

Every model below can be ordered new with a manual today, as of August 2026. Manufacturers roll over to a new model year at different times, so these rows are not all the same year. Where a car has already moved to 2027, the notes say so.

Every gearbox below is a 6-speed unless the notes say otherwise.

Empty. The last budget manual, the Nissan Versa S 5-speed, ended with the 2025 model year; it lives in the discontinued table below.

The Mitsubishi Mirage dropped its 5-speed after the 2022 model year and ended production in 2025, putting it outside this registry's window. The Kia Forte GT was the last manual compact sport sedan under $30,000.

With the Versa gone, no US buyer can get a new manual under $20,000 for 2026, and nothing manual starts below $30,000. The bottom of the ladder, verified against each manufacturer's configurator in July 2026: Mazda MX-5 Miata Sport ($31,665), Honda Civic Si ($32,690), Toyota GR86 ($32,695), Mazda3 2.5 S Premium hatch ($32,885). The MX-5 is the only manual left under $32,000, and the Si and GR86 are five dollars apart. A manual Tacoma costs more than the truck's $32,445 base MSRP, because the stick requires the Double Cab, 4WD, 5-foot-bed configuration. The Price column is what the window sticker totals: base MSRP plus destination, plus the federal gas guzzler tax where it applies. It always shows the cheapest manual-equipped configuration, not the model's base MSRP.

That third line item is invisible in an advertised MSRP, and it is not small. The gas guzzler tax lands on any car rated under 22.5 mpg combined. The CT5-V Blackwing carries $2,100 of it, which is most of the $3,895 gap between its $98,900 MSRP and what you actually pay. Its CT4-V sibling pays none. And because the tax applies only to cars, the Wrangler, Bronco and Tacoma escape it entirely on classification, however much fuel they use: a V6 Wrangler is exempt where a V8 sedan with better mileage is not.

The 22.5 threshold is also not measured against the number on the window sticker. The tax uses the unadjusted laboratory result, which runs well above the figure a buyer sees, so a car can be rated far below 22.5 and still owe nothing. The manual Mustang GT is rated 18 mpg combined and pays no tax at all. The Dark Horse, one rating step down at 17, pays $1,300, and $300 of that exists only because of the gearbox. Ford's order banks carry the six-speed's share as its own line item, tied to the transmission choice, so the same car costs $300 more in tax with three pedals than with two. Where a manual requires a substantially more expensive trim, the Notes column gives the second figure. All prices are as of July 2026, except the Porsche 911 Carrera S MT Package, priced from Porsche's August 13, 2026 press release, and the Exotics section entries added from Monterey Car Week the same month. Twenty-four models are verified against the manufacturers' own configurators and disclaimers, base price and destination charge established separately rather than inferred from each other: the MX-5, Civic Si, Civic Type R, GR86, Mazda3, BRZ, WRX, Supra, GR Corolla, Mustang, Tacoma, Wrangler, Bronco, Z, Elantra N, M2, M3, M4, Z4, the 911, both Integras and both Blackwings. BMW is a partial exception: it omits the destination charge from its configurator, but states one in the US press release for every model, and the 2027 M-cars are quoted there as "plus $1,350 destination and handling". That fee is model-year-specific rather than fixed per brand. BMW charged $1,175 on its 2026 cars, so the Z4's final-year pricing does not take the same number as the M-cars. The rest carry Road & Track's February 2026 figures and may lag a mid-year increase by a few hundred dollars; ten of the twenty-four we checked had moved in that window, so assume the unverified rows have drifted too.

The automatic is quicker, smoother, and easier in traffic. Most buyers know this and choose accordingly. The minority who buy the manual pick their own gears and work their own clutch on every shift. They want it badly enough to special-order it. This registry is for them.

Car manufacturers do not publish a single consolidated document of which trims have a manual transmission. The information lives in PDF spec sheets, configurator walkthroughs, and press releases. The annual magazine roundups are useful, but they date quickly: a model dropped in January and a model added in March both change the count, and the annual publication cycle misses both.

We update this registry when we confirm a change, not on a calendar schedule. The date at the top of the page marks the last review.

We include a model if a US buyer can order it new with a manual transmission today, whatever model year the manufacturer is currently shipping. We track orderability rather than a fixed model year, because manufacturers roll over at different times. By mid-2026 some cars here are 2027s and others are still 2026s, so no single year describes the whole table. We mark a model as dropped when the manufacturer confirms the manual is no longer available in the US configurator for the upcoming model year. If a model is rumored to be dropping but the manufacturer hasn't confirmed it, the caveat column says so.

The 24 is a model count, not a trim count. We count the Porsche 911 and 718 as separate models, but treat the MX-5 soft top and RF as one model, the 718 Cayman and Boxster as one, and the 911 Carrera T and GT3 as one, because those are bodystyle or trim variations of the same car. The Civic and Integra each get two rows in the "Currently on sale" table above (Si and Type R; A-Spec and Type S) because the trims differ enough to need separate specs: sedan versus hatchback for the Civic, CVT-standard versus manual-only for the Integra. By the same rule they still count as one model each, not two.

Peer counts differ by methodology, not by facts. Motor1 says "more than 25" for 2026; GearJunkie counts 29, four of which are seven-figure exotics. Our 24 excludes exotics (see below) and moves models that ended with 2025 (the 718 and Versa) to the discontinued table rather than the current one. Because we track orderability instead of a model year, our count can also move mid-year while an annual roundup's cannot: a car whose manual dies at the model-year rollover leaves this table the week that happens, not the following January.

The manual predates the automatic by decades. The 1891 Panhard et Levassor ran a three-speed sliding-mesh gearbox, Cadillac introduced synchromesh in 1929, and the 1952 Porsche 356 was the first car with synchromesh on every forward gear. The first 7-speed manual arrived in the 2012 Porsche 911. In 2008, three quarters of Western European cars still had manuals. Car and Driver launched Save the Manuals in July 2010, citing the new Ferrari 458 Italia as one trigger: it arrived with no three-pedal option.

Neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima, who developed Nintendo's Brain Age series, has researched at Tohoku University's Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer finding that operating a manual transmission engages the prefrontal cortex more than driving an automatic. That's the brain region responsible for attention, memory, and decision-making. Coordinating the clutch, shifter, and throttle while reading traffic requires continuous processing that an automatic's passive supervision doesn't. The study measures increased brain activity during the task itself; it doesn't establish that manuals prevent cognitive decline or that driving an automatic causes harm.

Every car in this registry has an episode trail on Car Curious, built from our podcast index. Start with the manuals the shows keep coming back to: the Porsche 911, BMW M3, Ford Mustang, Mazda MX-5 Miata, Toyota Supra, Porsche Cayman, and Subaru WRX. Each page lists the episodes where hosts actually talk about the car.

The manual has a congregation, not just a registry. Anti-Automatic is a manual-enthusiast community hundreds of thousands strong, with merch, a newsletter, and a manifesto that opens by conceding you're outnumbered and outperformed, then explains why that isn't the point.

And if you want in but never learned, that's fixable: instructors like Brooklyn's Drive Stick Shift teach three-pedal confidence one lesson at a time, and stick-shift driving schools operate in most metros.

For buying, selling, or discovering three-pedal cars, Built for Backroads is a driver-focused private-seller marketplace that features vetted listings of manual-transmission cars, where listing your own car is free.

Seven low-volume cars outside the US mass market also offer manual-style shifting. Five are physical manuals: the Pagani Utopia has a 7-speed and the Hennessey Venom F5 has a gated 6-speed. Two more joined them at Monterey Car Week in August 2026: the Spyker C8 Preliator XXV Coupé, a 789-hp Audi-sourced twin-turbo V8 hypercar with a 6-speed manual, 25 built, around $1.87 million, 19 already claimed by the reveal; and the Gordon Murray S1, a 681-hp 4.2-liter Cosworth V12 revving to 12,100 rpm with a central driving position and a 6-speed manual, 64 built, pricing undisclosed beyond GMA's promise it undercuts a used McLaren F1. McLaren unveiled the McL 6GT (codename P50) the same week: a V8 paired with a manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive and a carbon-fiber monocoque, the brand's first stick shift since the 1992 F1. It isn't orderable yet. Production starts in the second half of 2028, at roughly 500 cars from near $1.5 million, with power, performance and weight unconfirmed, so it stays a preview here until pricing and specs are locked. Two are simulations. The Koenigsegg CC850's clutch pedal and gated shifter drive a simulated 6-speed mode on the 9-speed Light Speed Transmission. The 2027 Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale uses Ferrari's "Manuale by Wire" system: the clutch pedal and open-gate shifter send electronic inputs to the car's eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.

That Ferrari system is not just a cosmetic shifter. Current reporting says manual mode uses the first six of the DCT's eight ratios in an H-pattern; the car has no paddle shifters; pressing the D button returns it to automatic mode; and the clutch behavior is programmed closely enough that the V12 can stall. Ferrari plans 1,499 cars at about 590,000 euros, roughly $675,000. It is the first clutch-pedal, gated-shifter Ferrari since the 599 GTB Fiorano ended production in 2012, but it is still a simulation rather than a physical manual gearbox. We exclude all seven cars from the main tables: none moves through US dealer networks the way a Miata or Wrangler does, the Koenigsegg and Ferrari don't meet the mechanical definition used for the registry count, and the McLaren has no confirmed US pricing or on-sale date.

This registry is maintained alongside Suspension, our daily car-news brief. When a manufacturer confirms a change, we cover it and the registry moves the same week. Recent entries:

Subscribe free and you will know before the annual roundups do.

Data sources: Car and Driver (Jan 2026), Car and Driver on the 2027 BMW M3 CS Handschalter, Car and Driver on the Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale (Jul 2026), Porsche Newsroom on the 2027 911 Carrera S with MT Package (Aug 2026), Motor1 on the McLaren McL 6GT (Aug 2026), Gordon Murray Automotive on the S1 (Aug 2026), Motor1 on the Spyker C8 Preliator XXV (Aug 2026), Honda press release on the Civic Si production pause (Jul 2026), The Drive on the BMW M2 manual take rate (Aug 2026), Road & Track (Feb 2026, entry prices except where verified directly), Ferrari Magazine (Jul 2026), MotorTrend (Mar 2026), Motor1 annual manual-car census (2024, 2025, 2026), Motor1 manual take-rate survey (Jan 2026), US News (Jun 2025), Carfax (Mar 2026), EPA Automotive Trends Report (2025 edition, transmission production share), Wikipedia (transmission history), Best Car Web on the Kawashima cognitive research, manufacturer press releases and US configurator data. Compiled by Suspension with Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform.